Everything in Middle Earth is Haraam
by Simbelmyne Nienor
Summary: The world must have been conspiring against Kate Wilms, for the ghosts of Thespis and Will Shakespeare have decided to drop her into Middle Earth. However, being Muslim and only half white, Kate is automatically assumed to be part of the Haradrim. Add in a Mary Sue, pork, and various language barriers, Kate realizes that everything is haraam (not lawful to Muslims) in Middle Earth.


**So, I have a new story idea. I hope it doesn't suck and kind of makes sense. Enjoy! (I hope)**

**oOo**

Kate Wilms – recent convert to Islam - adjusted her black hijab for the millionth time, a nervous habit, while sitting on a bench in the theatre lobby of her high school's theatre along with a few other theatre friends. Today was the day that she would audition for the part of Desdemona in "Othello." More than anything, she wanted this role. She had practiced her singing nearly every hour of every single day, annoying her family to no end by repeating "The Willow Song" nonstop throughout the summer. She had gone over her monologue several thousand times, frantically pacing back and forth while trying to memorize Shakespeare; hardly an easy feat. Now, all she could do was wait until her name was called out and she would stand up in front of the director, Ms. Atkinson, and hope for the best.

Clearly, by the drumming of her fingers against her thighs, Kate was nervous, incredibly nervous. So, in order to calm herself down, she began repeating the first chapter of the Qur'an, Surat al-Fatihah, over and over under her breath. This drew quite a few looks from the other girls waiting to audition, as Kate was also rocking back and forth with her eyes squeezed shut, muttering what seemed like nonsense.

"Ar-Rahmanir-Rahim Maliki yawmid-Deen, iy-yaka..." Kate said, her breathing slowing and her body relaxing as she felt her nervousness fade away. She had nothing to worry about. Absolutely nothing.

However, Thespis and the ghost of William Shakespeare must have been conspiring against her because she then heard her name over the loudspeaker, echoing throughout the theatre lobby.

_Shit._ She had to audition now.

Taking small steps, Kate made her way into the theatre and forced her legs to carry herself onto the stage. _Heel, toe, heel, toe, _she told herself, automatically feeling more confident because her combat boots had heels and buckles. Buckles on boots made her look badass. No, she _was_ a badass.

Once on the stage, dead centre and right in front of Ms. Atkinson, Kate took a deep breath and then said, "My name is Kate Wilms, I'm a junior, and I'll be performing one of Viola's monologues from 'Twelfth Night' by William Shakespeare."

Good. She didn't accidentally say that she was a sophomore or a freshman. That would have been embarrassing. And, on another note, she didn't make uncomfortable eye contact with the director. That was a plus.

Ms. Atkinson nodded at Kate, signaling that she should begin her monologue.

Kate took another deep breath, trying desperately not to pass out. _This was it. Oh God. Bismillah, bismillah, bismillah._

"I left no ring with her. What means this lady?" Kate said, drawing out a small silver ring from her pants pocket, "Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her. She made good view of me; indeed, so much that, as me thought, her eyes had lost her tongue, for she did speak in starts distractedly…"

However, when she got to the "None of my lord's ring?" part of the monologue, something weird happened. The lights in the room flickered on and off, even though no one should have been anywhere near the lighting controls in the building. Various snippets of the songs from "The Phantom of the Opera: Live at Royal Albert Hall" played over the loudspeaker. However, Kate noticed, she never once heard Hadley Fraser's voice as Raoul. If this was the doing of the ghost of William Shakespeare, he must have been an Erik/Christine shipper.

Once again, Kate let her mind wander to rather unimportant things and completely forgot that she was onstage in the middle of an audition; her audition, to top things off.

Instead of asking the poor and flustered Kate to leave, Ms. Atkinson, ever the gracious director, said, "Never mind the technical difficulties, Kate, for the show must go on!"

Nodding absentmindedly, Kate resumed her monologue. "None of my lord's ring?" she managed to say, before the lights flickered once more and the music grew louder and louder until she could barely hear herself think.

Five minutes later, auditions had been postponed to the next day due to technical difficulties in the theatre. At least, that was what Ms. Atkinson had said to all of the waiting girls in the lobby. Kate didn't hear this message, as she was too busy wallowing in self-pity at her failed audition. Now, she was probably going to get cut from the show and be forced to join tech and then she would try to be helpful by painting sets but would probably and accidentally make the set bright pink and ruin everything and then the technical director would ask her to leave the production forever and never come back to high school theatre and then her mother would make her join a sport or something like that in order to actually do something useful after school ended and knowing her mother, it would probably be a dumb sport, like cross country, because running sucked and Kate was so out of shape and she would rather die than have to exercise five days out of the week for three hours each day.

If one were to analyze the goings-on in Kate's head, one could easily see why she considered herself an actor. She was, after all, a little bit overdramatic. Just a little.

During this time, while her train of thought strayed from self pity to utter insanity, Kate's hands found their way into her pants pocket, fiddling with the fabric absentmindedly until they came across a still-slightly cold and heavy object. Drawing it out of her pocket and actually looking at what she had found, Kate realized that it was the prop ring that she had tried to use during her monologue. "Tried" being the operative word. Although, if she looked a little bit closer at the ring that she was holding, Kate could see that the color had changed.

Her ring was no longer silver; instead, it was a shiny and slightly disconcerting, if a color could be called disconcerting because there was something incredibly _off_ about it, gold. Her once-silver ring was now gold. Weird. It even looked like it had changed sizes.

Experimentally, Kate slipped the ring onto her thumb, for it seemed like that was the only finger on which it would fit. Before she knew it, she found herself standing in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere.

"Shit," she said, mostly to herself. Well, completely to herself because there was no one else around for miles. Oh. She was alone and didn't know where she was. That wasn't good. Not in the slightest. So, she repeated her earlier sentiments when she said in a louder voice, perhaps hoping to draw attention to her lost and sorry state, "Shit."

Looking around her surroundings, Kate realized that the sun was maybe about ten minutes from completely disappearing below the horizon. And, as everyone knows, forests, especially unknown forests, are very scary once the sun goes down. Nighttime sucked, especially in nature. And when one was alone. Kate was alone. And scared. To her left, she saw a lot of green stuff, probably leaves, but the light was fading and her eyesight failing, so it might have been something else entirely. To her right, she saw a muddy little stream which kind of ruled out a source of fresh water.

"I'm going to die!" Kate wailed, for that dialogue tag was completely and utterly necessary to this horrible and drastically terrifying situation, falling to her knees.

However, her knees never hit the ground. Instead, they painfully hit a sharp, pointy, awkwardly shaped lump of something. Upon closer look, Kate realized that it was a backpack made out of some kind of nondescript brown fabric that was very scratchy. Probably wool. Pinned onto the top of the backpack was a note with what seemed like two distinct styles of handwriting. One was a blocky print that kind of looked like Greek, but was still written in English. The second was a flowery cursive that almost looked like calligraphy

The note read (in the first handwriting style):

_Hello Kate Wilms. It is I, Thespis, the first actor. _

Kate nearly died when she saw this. Damnit. Theatre superstitions and beliefs were really affecting the way she thought about things. She should really do something else with her spare time.

_You might be wondering why you are here in the middle of an unknown forest._

_Do not worry. You are perfectly safe, as long as you avoid the water in that stream._

_My dear friend Will, who also packed your bag for you, very nearly choked when he had a glassful._

_Despite his skill at poetry and prose, he can really play the fool._

_He is also the only person I know to actually bring fine Venetian glassware to the middle of a forest._

Blinking her eyes rapidly, as if she had seen something unbelievable, which, in all actuality, was not far from the truth, Kate set down the note. Thespis, the first actor, had written a note in _English_ to her, never mind that he was a man from Ancient Greece who was alive a very long time before Modern English was even thought of. This was strange. Very strange. Nevertheless, Kate read on, noticing that the handwriting changed into the flowery and calligraphic cursive quite abruptly.

_Never mind what Thespis says, dear madam, about my Venetian glassware_

_He is merely jealous of both me and the household objects that I own_

_He especially wants my second-best bed, but I have left that towards my wife._

_William Shakespeare at your service, Kate Wilms. I am sorry for interrupting your audition._

_You would have made a fine Desdemona, but something had to be done._

_Yes, I am an Erik/Christine shipper. Thespis, on the other hand, prefers Raoul/Meg._

_What a strange creature._

Never, in all of her life, would Kate Wilms dream of reading a piece of paper written by Will Shakespeare in surprisingly modern and easy to understand, albeit a bit formal, language that talked about who ships who in Phantom of the Opera. William Shakespeare, a phan. How odd.

Unlike Thespis' little paragraph, Shakespeare rambled on for quite a bit.

_You, Kate, are currently standing in the middle of a forest that does not actually exist._

_Well, it exists now, but it did not earlier this morning. It seems to have appeared when you arrived. Maybe nature knew that you hated forests and purposely planted one just to antagonize you_

_If I have done my math correctly, you are around a three days' walk from the nearest town._

_From what I gather, everyone in that town speaks something that sounds like German. Good luck trying to understand them. _

_On another note, I have packed your bag for you. There isn't much, just your leatherbound notebook with your story ideas and a Qur'an. Oh, you needn't worry about a change of clothes. You are already wearing an outfit suitable for the time period. _

Looking down, Kate realized that she was indeed wearing a different set of clothes. Instead of her grey uniform pants and navy sweater, she had on a brown underdress and a green overdress, the latter of which was most definitely wool. On her feet were pair of boots, albeit, no longer badass and buckle covered black combat boots. In a moment of panic, Kate's hands flew up to her head. Was she still wearing a hijab? What if she wasn't? To her relief, there was a brown scarf, thankfully not made of wool, wrapped around her head. Kate really didn't like wool.

However, bemoaning the fabric of her clothes was going to get her nowhere, so Kate continued to read the note written by Shakespeare.

_You will be walking for at least three days, like I have already said. At the village, ask for a woman named "Hildelith." She can help. Oh, and the people of the village can be a tad bit racist when it comes to people who do not look like those of European descent. Do not worry. They will get over it. _

_In a few months, you will meet a new companion. Her name is far too long for me to write down on the paper, but she responds to Grand Duchess Odessa. Good luck with her. She is unique, to say the least._

Kate's brain hurt at this point from trying to decipher what Shakespeare was saying. Well, more so than usual. It seemed as if whenever Shakespeare wrote something, Kate automatically had a hard time trying to figure out what he said. First, there was iambic pentameter and awkward abbreviations of words such as "th'other," and now there was a cryptic note telling her that she had to walk for three days in order to reach civilization. That seemed like a horrible idea! She hated walking and all exercise in general with a passion. And there was still one question in the back of her mind waiting to be answered. Where the hell was she?

Once she read on, though, Kate's confused thoughts were explained with four simple words.

_Welcome to Middle Earth._

Kate did actually faint at this, although she came to her senses not ten minutes later.

Middle Earth? She was in Middle Earth? Thespis and Shakespeare sent her to Middle Earth? The Theatre Gods were conspiring against her! Well, even if it didn't make sense, it's not as if she could just return home. Kate was lonely. She wanted someone to talk to, although the companion that the note mentioned, Grand Duchess Odessa, seemed like a handful.

Wait, Kate realized, smacking herself on the forehead at her stupidity. She had already fallen into Middle Earth as the seemingly average and run-of-the-mill teenage girl, and now she was going to have a companion in a few months with an impossible name. _Grand Duchess Odessa, _she thought, _more like_ _Mary Sue_. She, Kate Wilms, was going to become a Mary Sue's companion, or, even worse, a Mary Sue herself. She already had the whole "girl falls into Middle Earth" thing happen with powerful benefactors. Was she a Mary Sue? Because that would suck.

Her stomach started aching after a few hours. Kate had been thinking quite outrageous thoughts for a while and she had grown quite hungry. When she reached into her bag, she found some bread and some water. That was not nearly enough, but at least it was something. Who was she kidding, Kate realized two minutes later. She wasn't skinny by any means. She was horribly out of shape and a bit of bread and some water was never ever going to be enough food for her.

God. She was so hungry. And, now that she was whining, she was also pathetic. Really pathetic. And she just wanted to go home. Kate desperately wanted to go home. The thought of home made her cry. She missed her friends, her family, her refrigerator. And Wifi! There wouldn't be any of that in Middle Earth. How was she supposed to read fanfiction? How was she supposed to go on Tumblr? How was she supposed to do her World History AP assignment that's due tomorrow morning? And what about books? She doubted that they had heard of Agatha Christie and JK Rowling in Middle Earth. While Kate had read "And Then There Were None" at least seven times in her lifetime, she didn't have the book memorized. What was she going to do?

Kate eventually calmed herself by humming various songs from "Newsies," but then she started sobbing again at that thought. She had no music! No iPod, no CDs, not even a cassette tape or a record. Without music, Kate was nothing. She would become an utter shell of herself and waste away in the middle of a strange forest in Middle Earth, never to ever see her family again. Wow, Kate thought, she really was pathetic. That thought only made her cry harder.

Five hours and three breakdowns later, once the sun had already risen the next morning, Kate finally stood up in the middle of the forest from where she was curled up on the ground in fetal position, slung her bag onto her back, and resigned herself to what she was sent here to do. Actually, if she thought about it, the note never really said what Kate was supposed to do, other than to go to the nearest town and wait for the Mary Sue that she hadn't quite met yet.

Still, Kate started walking in a direction she hoped was the right one. Immensely glad that her shoes were boots and the clothes provided for her looked like they would do well in harsh weather and forest-y conditions, she walked throughout the rest of the day and night. Of course, at sunrise, noon, afternoon, evening, and nighttime, she prayed facing a direction that she hoped was the equivalent of pointing towards Mecca. In this strange ordeal, Kate could feel herself becoming more religious. It was probably that she knew she was going to die that made her pray more. In her panicked thoughts, Kate reasoned that if she were to become good now, God wouldn't send her to hell. Because that would be bad. Really bad. Thinking other discombobulated thoughts as these, Kate continued walking, cursing the fact that she was fat and out of shape and horribly wimpy and couldn't actually make it through the forest, until, by chance, she came across a weird and wide and eerily empty clearing of the forest. It was late at night and she should probably have started to set up camp for the night. Luckily, Kate still had some common sense left in her body, albeit not that much.

"Nope," Kate said, walking straight through the clearing until she was back in the forest. She was not going to make camp out in the open like an idiot. A bear would probably come out and eat her face while she slept, or the trees would come alive and step on her, or a serial would appear and skin her and then take her skin and make a mask to cover up his horrid face. No, wait. That was the Phantom of the Opera in the 1989 movie. Nope. Kate was not an idiot in that sense. She knew she had to continue moving until she found some kind of civilization. Only God knew where she was at that moment. Well, yes, she was in Middle Earth, but she could be in Near Harad for all she knew.

And so, after walking for the next two days, realizing that there were no bathrooms in strange forests in Middle Earth and that she grew incredibly dizzy when hungry, Kate found herself at the outskirts of a small village with little houses and thatched roofs. How utterly adorable. Kate smiled widely. She had done it! She had navigated her way out of that forest and had found civilization!

Kate turned around to look at the forest that she had just come out of, but to her surprise, there were no trees in sight; just a never ending plain of long and swishy grass. _Oh. _That was weird. Well, Kate supposed, if a forest could just spontaneously appear, then it could spontaneously _dis_appear.

Wait. Swishy grass? Plains? Thatched roofs? Was Kate in Rohan? How the hell did she end up there? Did Fangorn Forest transport her there? Weird. Maybe the trees could have stepped on her while she slept. That would've been a horrible and painful way to die. Kate's head hurt from trying to figure this all out. Well, the lack of food wasn't really helping the situation either.

Her confusion was only made worse when she turned back around to face the village that she had arrived at and found the tip of a dagger pointed up against her chest.

_Shit. _"Is this a dagger which I see before me?" Kate said under her breath, almost dying of laughter at her unending wit in horrible situations like her probable demise. Oh God. She was going to die. _Shit._

The man who was holding the dagger looked very worriedly at Kate, although his dagger was still about to punch through her sternum and thud into her heart, killing her instantly. He must have been a little bit disconcerted at the hysterical laughter of his almost-victim. Still looking both concerned for Kate's mental health and menacing, because she was a foreigner who could possibly kill him in her sleep, he yelled something in that language which sounded like German but wasn't – Old English, Kate remembered later on – at an older woman who was standing a few yards behind him. All that Katie could understand was a word that sounding something like "Harad."

Oh. That was nice, Kate realized as everything dawned on her. Well, not everything, but something of significance. They thought that she was from Harad. Of course. Because she wears a headscarf and could look Arab if you squinted (never mind that she was half white and half Filipino), Kate was automatically assumed to be one of the Haradrim. Great. Racist people of Rohan. What would be next? ISIS comments? "Go home terrorist"?

Kate remembered where she was when she felt the tip of the dagger press a little harder against her clothes. Right. Not the best time to be zoning off. She kind of wanted to stay alive.

The woman who was called over shook her head at the man with the dagger and said something to him, before Kate felt herself being thrown to the ground, thankfully not sliced open or stabbed in the heart.

What happened next was strange. At least, it was for Kate. She was then picked up off of the ground by the woman, who was a lot stronger than she looked (for Kate weighed exactly 143.2 pounds and was by no means feathery light like a Mary Sue) and taken to a small house in the centre of the village and unceremoniously dumped inside onto the floor. Two weeks later, Kate would still swear she had a bruise on her backside from where she had landed onto the packed earth.

Then, she was interrogated by the woman who apparently was the owner of the house for a good three minutes. There was a bit of a language barrier, as Kate knew nothing of Old English except that _hund_ was the word for dog and that that was going to get her nowhere. So, after those three minutes full of exasperation and awkwardness (on Kate's part), the other woman said in a measured voice, probably to keep her temper in check, "Mīn nama is Hildelith."

Thankfully, Kate understood what Hildelith was saying, also because her old buddy Will Shakespeare had told her to look out for a woman named Hildelith, and repeated the older woman's words. "Mīn nama is Kate."

Hildelith repeated "Kate" over and over, probably trying to wrap her head around a strange and non-Anglo Saxon name. And then, the interrogation continued, even if it was only for twenty four more seconds until Hildelith realized that Kate wasn't just pretending to be stupid and that the strange girl really knew nothing of the language and would get nowhere.

Kate, on the other hand, really wanted dinner. That was all she cared about. So what if she was regarded as dangerous? So what if she might possibly be stabbed in her sleep? She was hungry and she wanted to eat. She also felt kind of bad for the people of this village. They had to deal with her. Sorry, she wanted to say, even though she knew that no one would understand her.

Once her stomach growled very loudly not twelve minutes later, Kate was handed a plate of food and a mug of something by Hildelith and was about to eat it with an astounding amount of enthusiasm when she realized something. On the plate was what looked like black pudding and a couple of pieces of bacon and in the mug was what smelled like weak beer. For the eighth time that day, and certainly not the last, Kate started to cry. Loudly. Black pudding was pig's blood. Bacon was pork. Ale was alcohol.

The people of the small village were quite surprised when Kate stood up from where she was sitting on a bench in Hildelith's house and ran outside, knocking over several people. Their concern and shock only intensified greatly when they heard Kate's scream – not that they understood what it meant – of "EVERYTHING IN MIDDLE EARTH IS HARAAM!"

**oOo**

**If you didn't know, Muslims can't eat pork or drink alcohol and they pray 5 times a day facing the Mecca, a city in Saudi Arabia. A hijab is the headscarf that some Muslim women wear.**

**Please tell me what you thought of this. Should I continue? Should I change something? Is this too cliché? If I do continue, I'll add the Mary Sue in the next chapter. Thank you! :)**


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